Healthcare reform debate in the United States

[13] Further, an estimated 77 million Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age, which combined with significant annual increases in healthcare costs per person will place enormous budgetary strain on U.S. state and federal governments.

Physicians for a National Health Program, a political advocacy group, has claimed that a free market solution to healthcare provides a lower quality of care, with higher mortality rates, than publicly funded systems.

The United States has the lowest life expectancy overall and the infant mortality rate is the highest and in some cases twice as high when compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

[30] Private insurance in the US varies greatly in its coverage; one study by the Commonwealth Fund published in Health Affairs estimated that 16 million U.S. adults were underinsured in 2003.

The underinsured were significantly more likely than those with adequate insurance to forgo healthcare, report financial stress because of medical bills, and experience coverage gaps for such items as prescription drugs.

[31] However, a study published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2008 found that the typical large employer Preferred provider organization (PPO) plan in 2007 was more generous than either Medicare or the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program Standard Option.

[16] According to economist and former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, only a "big, national, public option" can force insurance companies to cooperate, share information, and reduce costs.

His plan mentions: deficit neutrality; not allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions; capping out of pocket expenses; creation of an insurance exchange for individuals and small businesses; tax credits for individuals and small companies; independent commissions to identify fraud, waste and abuse; and malpractice reform projects, among other topics.

Writing in the New York Times, David Leonhardt described how the cost of treating the most common form of early-stage, slow-growing prostate cancer ranges from an average of $2,400 (watchful waiting to see if the condition deteriorates) to as high as $100,000 (radiation beam therapy):[44] According to economist Peter A. Diamond and research cited by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the cost of healthcare per person in the U.S. also varies significantly by geography and medical center, with little or no statistical difference in outcome.

These will be offered on a sliding scale to people earning less than four times the federal poverty level to enable them to buy health insurance if they are not otherwise covered by their employer.

Democratic legislators have largely supported the proposed reform efforts, while Republicans have criticized the government option or expanded regulation of healthcare.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has also recommended that President Obama engage someone like Cortese to have a more active role in driving reform efforts.

If we ration we won't be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend.

[69][70] During 2009, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wrote against alleged rationing, referring to what by her interpretation was a "downright evil" "death panel" in current reform legislation known as H.R.

Sevugan explained the term "deathers" to Patricia Murphy, who used to write a Politics Daily column called "The Capitolist": By "deather," I mean an opponent of change who is knowingly spreading false information regarding the existence of an alleged "death panel" in health insurance reform plans despite the fact the claim has been repeatedly and unequivocally debunked by independent fact-checking organizations.

[83]Others, such as former Republican Secretary of Commerce Peter G. Peterson, have indicated that some form of rationing is inevitable and desirable considering the state of U.S. finances and the trillions of dollars of unfunded Medicare liabilities.

"[90] However, even successful tort reform might not lead to lower aggregate liability: for example, medical commentators have argued that the current contingent fee system skews litigation towards high-value cases while ignoring meritorious small cases; aligning litigation more closely with merit might thus increase the number of small awards, offsetting any reduction in large awards.

[91] A New York study found that only 1.5% of hospital negligence led to claims; moreover, the CBO observed that "health care providers are generally not exposed to the financial cost of their own malpractice risk because they carry liability insurance, and the premiums for that insurance do not reflect the records or practice styles of individual providers but more-general factors such as location and medical specialty.

Writing in The Washington Post, cardiologist Arthur Feldman cited various studies that indicate the U.S. is facing a "critical" shortage of doctors, including an estimated 1,300 general surgeons by 2010.

An amendment to the Senate health bill includes $2 billion in funds over 10 years to create 2,000 new residency training slots geared toward primary care medicine and general surgery.

[139][140] The House and Senate bills would mandate the purchase of policies that pay 100% of the cost of certain services, with no co-pay; when the Senate bill was amended to mandate paying for tests that a federal panel and U.S. News & World Report said "do more harm than good,"[141] The New York Times wrote, "This sorry episode does not bode well for reform efforts to rein in spending on other procedures based on sound scientific evidence of their potential benefits and risks for patients.

[145] Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone that President Obama and key senators who have advocated single-payer systems in the past are unwilling to face the insurance companies and their powerful lobbying efforts.

The health care reform debate in the United States has been influenced by the Tea Party protest phenomenon, with reporters and politicians spending time reacting to it.

[148][149][150] Supporters of a greater government role in healthcare, such as former insurance PR executive Wendell Potter of the Center for Media and Democracy- whose funding comes from groups such as the Tides Foundation-[151] argue that the hyperbole generated by this phenomenon is a form of corporate astroturfing, which he says that he used to write for CIGNA.

[157] President Obama argued during a September 2009 joint session of Congress that the government has a moral responsibility to ensure quality healthcare is available to all citizens.

"[159] Conservative and libertarian arguments against a government role in healthcare emerged in the 1910s, as public concern was growing about the problems of health care access and high medical costs.

As illustrated by these tensions, Cold war propaganda and socialism was so central in the debates of healthcare that ideas of health insurance and accessibility became inextricable from politics.

The AMA and many physicians actively held political roles that opposed many grassroots movements for compulsory health insurance, due to their private/ profit incentives as well as antipathy toward "socialism".

In the few areas where there are free markets in health care – such as cosmetic medicine and Lasik eye surgery – customer service is great, and prices continue to drop.

And our great uniqueness, what surrounds American exceptionalism, what really drives it is that entrepreneurial individualistic spirit which goes out and takes a risk when nobody else is willing to do it or comes up with an idea that nobody else comes up with and that all gets dampened down the larger and more intrusive government becomes, especially if you follow a European model.